


Anticipation

by calenlily



Series: Tales of a Greenrider Girl [1]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - McCaffrey
Genre: Gen, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The heat of the sands is nearly scorching her feet through her thin sandals, but she stands confident and surefooted all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anticipation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grav_ity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/gifts).



The heat of the sands is nearly scorching her feet through her thin sandals, but she stands confident and surefooted all the same. Around her, the other girls shuffle, whether out of nerves or physical discomfort she cannot say. They all huddle in a loose semi-circle, around – but not _too_ close to – the single gleaming golden egg. Watching the expressions that blend incredulous excitement and terrified uncertainty in varying proportions, she realizes she is strangely calm. Her only concession to impatience is to finger the ends of her unruly dark locks (chopped from waist length in a fit of pique at nine Turns old and kept clipped below her chin ever since).

She does not know how she can be so serene. But she knows this is the day she’s been waiting for all her life, and rather than daunting her, that fact fills her with a certain quiet determination. Then, too, her family has produced generation after generation of riders, most of them high-ranking, and while that legacy bestows more than a little pressure on her, she figures it also suggests that at least some of the qualities that appeal to the dragons are inheritable.

She has been at numerous Hatchings before this; only as a spectator, certainly, but all the same she knows what to expect. She is more comfortable around dragons, able to keep her cool even under the gaze of the queen who keeps a suspicious eye on all who dare approach her eggs, especially the girls, and she knows a million things about the details and patterns of riders’ lives that the others don’t. It’s a weyrbrat’s duty to know everything that goes on, after all.

Of course, weyrbred girls rarely Impress gold. It’s a well-known pattern, even if the reason why can only be guessed at. She knows it is unlikely she would be standing as a Candidate today if she weren’t the Weyrleaders’ daughter. (They may be much better than the Holds in the respect, but the fact remains that society in the Weyrs is not nearly as equal as it claims to be.)

But her hopes had never been pinned to that golden egg anyway. She feels a certain vague gratitude towards it for getting her onto the sands, for girls were still only presented as Candidates for clutches with a queen egg (a practice which she thought ridiculous, not least because it meant her chronically irresponsible little brother Impressed before she ever got a chance). No, she had always been drawn to the little feisty, agile greens.

Her fascination had perhaps first stemmed from a desire to differentiate herself from her mother, whom she knew would be appalled. But, more than that, she was neither a lady nor an administrator. She knows how much of a Weyrwoman’s duties consist of nothing more than management (not to mention being frequently grounded). She is not without ambition, but she figures she can find her own ways to stand out. The fighting wings seem far more fitting for her spirit.

The humming reaches a crescendo, bringing her out of her musings and back to the present.

Her haughty confidence and composure shatter with the shell of the first egg to break. There is no anticipating _this_, she finds.

In the excitement that follows, she realizes that doesn’t matter.


End file.
